Persona

Meet: Bev, the queen of chickens

Age: 53,

Marital Status: Married

Education: High School Diploma

Occupation: Stay at home Mom

City: Roeland Park (KS)

Bev grew up on the  married her high school sweetheart and became a stay at home mom to 3 kids who are all grown up now. She currently lives in Roeland Park, Kansas and she enjoys urban farming, gardening, knitting, and is actively involved in church. She believes strongly in local food and having the right to own chickens so she fights against unfair city ordinances that halt the practice of urban chicken farming. She is interested in creating a community for urban chicken farmers where advice can be exchanged and experiences shared. She is known as the queen of the chickens and believes that they can fight for the right to have chickens as long as they join together. Her children are also interested in having their own chickens and she actively helps them.

The Novice

Meet: Jennifer Ryan

Jennifer has just started her backyard chicken coop three months ago. One day her neighbor offered her some fresh eggs from their own backyard chicken coop and she was so amazed by the taste that she decided to try it herself. 

Age: 27
Marital Status: Single 
Education: Bachelors Degree
Occupation: Coffee Shop Manager
Neighborhood: Brookside 
Hobbies: Cooking, Gardening, and collects scooters
Goals: To be more self sufficient, support local farmers, and to eventually own a small farm.
Values: living green, spreading the word and ideas of urban chicken farming, learning how to be a better chicken farmer

UX: Field Research

chicken run!

While our secondary research was adequately informative and factually thorough, it would prove to be only scratching the surface. The experience with the chickens in person is completely necessary because they are fluffy, docile, soft, and adorable. Like pets, chickens are easy to form instant bonds with, especially when holding them. This past Saturday proved to be the watershed of our research. 

Annual Farmers & Friends Meeting (1/28/12, 9am-12pm)

We got lucky and were able to attend the annual, once a year, farmers meeting where there was even a surprise urban chicken group discussion. The discussion lead us to Teresa and Sheri, the two women responsible for fighting against chicken ordinances in Roeland Park, KS (CHIRP). It was quite overwhelming, exciting, inspiring...

...and delicious! I don't think we've ever struggled so unwillingly and reluctantly on choosing a piece of pie, each one homemade with ingredients tenderly grown on a loving farm. 

Cherith Brook with Nick Pickrell

Backyard farm + chicken area

Chickens are picky about where they lay their eggs. This crate is a popular spot for it.

Compost

Nick giving us a tour of the coop!

Interview Recording

Interview Highlights

1. Why did you decide to raise chickens?
   Peacemaking through gardening efforts. Decentralizing the food industry and advocating local food.
2. How long have you had the chickens?
   About two years.
3. When referring to Urban chicken farming, do you have a nickname/teamname for it?
   No, I can't think of anything besides urban chicken farmer, but I'll get back to you on that.
4. How do you feel about the strict chicken ordinances?
   Well, I'm glad that we have 4 properties! (KCMO requires at least 1 acre of land for 15 chickens). I think it's funny because dogs make more noises, while chickens are much quieter and actually give something more. I think it's[ordinance] preventing people from empowering themselves with the whole local food movement.
5. How do your neighbors feel about the chicken?
   They are all on board. We have a great relationship with the neighbors and the only complaint we had was about our compost pile, not the chickens.
6. Would you say there is a difference between your eggs and ones sold in the grocery store?
   I don't think so. It tastes better to me because I raised the chickens. I used to hate lima beans but ever since I started growing them, I eat them all the time.
7. Do you name your chickens?
   We did, the kids did, they named them names like "Vader" but I don't remember or keep track of most of the names anymore.
8. Do you have any interesting or funny chicken stories to share?
   We recently had to kill one of our roosters because it turned on us for some reason. It was just sneak attacking everyone including the kids. It actually sneak attacked me with it's "spur" on the back of it's feet and it left punctures in my ankle. So we had to make him into chicken soup.
9. Just curious, if you were a chicken, where would you live?
   I would live in the woods! I could just run around eating all sorts of things.
10. What inspired you to work here at Cherith Brook?
    I am from Blue Springs, MO and grew up in the suburbs. It was this conversion into faith that lead to me to a trip to rural India where people were one with the land. I realized I wanted to do that versus defaulting into the corporate world.
11. What other hobbies do you have outside your work here?
    Music. I play bass guitar, dabble in drums, play guitar and sing. 

Nick Pickrell works for Cherith Brook, a Christian community shelter. Cherith Brook owns about 28 chickens on 4 joined properties.

Visual Communication Reading Responce

Culture being a hard thing to define has been broken down into three sections by the English cultural theorist Raymond Williams: The process of a society's intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development. The particular way of life of a people, period, or group of people. And the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity. Commonly thought culture is defined in terms of people, events, and practices. The best of these things are considered to be worth saving. As designers we tend to focus on popular culture and the trends of the now. In modern popular culture which grew out of post-war consumerism and the rise of youth culture in america has spread across the western world becoming the foundation of most media related industries. This article really touches on the importance of observing trends and understanding how to shape that observation into a better user experience or product. People worry about the trend towards mass culture because of the degradation in quality of the items produced. Creative capital has started to trend together as the same by to many people coping one another and their successful ideas. Apparently according to the article even thought consumers can be made happy there is a common trend of making them desire a product, being fulfilled by it, and eventually becoming disillusioned by it. By creating these product the consumer / public base is distracted and kept out of politics. A sad example is my generation and the lack of involvement and apathy that no runs rampant. within these cultures each subculture has developed its own system of codes an identifiers. These are then after being observed used to market to those groups. Dress and ritual is a key to understanding what represents each society.

Information Architecture Find & Share

Hey everyone, 

I found some interesting and helpful reads on the smashing magazine website that I wanted to share. 

Click the image to visit the site:

Project Brainstorming

Project Brainstorming

1) Plant based typeface created using wire mesh framework. The type would be grown using the aquatic moss a rapidly growing plant grown in an aquarium. Using a photographic time-lapse it would grow overtime from the base of the letter forms or from one end to another.

2) Plant based typeface grown using surface plants that starting out lust and green will shrivel down small to the point of bare sticks.

3) Organic letterforms that decompose. Time-lapse or video of the process. This would take place in an aquarium with ants. The ants would. The video or time-lapse would be played backwards to make it appear as if the ants had built the typography.

4) Computer generated / randomly generated based on input to questions answered by survey by the user. Could I tie in an iPad app or iPhone app into this. Create a game or program that people could impute their data and get a letter form created for each person in their friends and family using their first initial possibly? They would then flesh out the entire alphabet and they could create words or sentences and print them off via Apple's AirPrint of send to e-mail.

5) Have a diverse group of people unknowingly to one another each draw their own interoperation of the letter forms. The differences in the letter forms will show diversity in the creativity and individuality of people of many races. The final artifact could spell out "DIVERSITY"

Documentation idea: Have each person take a picture with the letter form with it before they send or submit it to me to show that diversity.

Design Research Reading Responses

Design Research talks about the importance of researching the needs of the people that they're designing for. The idea of mass market design no longer works in todays market. People today expect more customized experiences and choices tailored to their needs. Society values diversity and individuality very much. Because of this people today expect more choices but this also means that there is much more work for designers. The power of the consumer is king now. People expect to be heard and make their opinons known with their wallets. This is why its so important that we as designers do our research and make sure the designs that we put out into the world are well thought out and effective. 

Qualitative design research is quite controversial method because of the debate of when its the proper method to use. Christopher Ireland really enjoyed practicing a dedicated idea of qualitative research. He enjoyed making the effort and the results of really digging into the lives of the people that the project is designing for. Unknown to him the idea he had was shared and growing around the country. 

Tim Plowman, talks about how ethnography and anthropology comes into play. Using the study of human behavior and how people experience a product or service. The imponderabilia being the perspective of the view of the people that we're researching and living and existing with them experiencing what they've experienced. Urban Ethnography uses a small sample of people as a representation of the whole. The use of ethnography in design traces some of its roots historically back to early Futurism, Constructivism, and the Bauhaus. Some German and Swiss firms both utilized social and scientifically based research into their methods at a time when it wasn't so common. Richard Wentworth's photographically documented research regarding the re-purposed objects to suit another need is a fascinating idea. Victor Margolin makes the argument that there needs to be a deeper assessment of the relationship between products and how people construct ideals of human happiness. Using this research he believes that innovation can be created to better support human well being and finding a new need for a product. 

Urban Chicken Farming Feedback Notes

Questions & Further Exploration:

Dig deeper into the competitive value in the community.

How are these values acted out?

What are their visual / verbal cues?

What kind of other hobbies or activities do they take part in that could have a relationship or trend with being an urban chicken farmer?

How do their family values tie into their values as a chicken farmer?

How do they involve their children?

Ask emotional response raising questions! 

Competition: What do they value in it? How does this happen? Awards / personal pride?

Historial trends in chicken farming - map it out. 

How did you learn about it in the first place?

Visual culture! What matters culturally?

How do they teach their kids?

If you were a chicken what would you want? How would you feel? What kind of chicken would you be?

Terminology / slang used?

Did they fight to change the legislation?

Find out their views of animal control, zoning laws, rules. 

Do they have a limit? Amount of chickens?

What do the farmers call themselves?

What is their perspective on big chicken farms versus personal?

Culture Probes:

Still Photo Survey / Guided Shadow Tour:

This will allow for us to answer questions that we have through interview and action. 

Write down terminology / slang / jargon they use!

Visual / Verbal Association Probe: 

Using simple clip art and icons.

what do they associate with urban chicken farming. 

11x17 w/glue sticks. 

multiple sheets of paper in the folder.

They can collage / draw on these forms.

chicken farming super hero. 

Containing: 1 glue stick, 11x17 sheets of paper, markers, icon cut outs / images of the materials and objects that they would associate with their practice of backyard farming. 

What I learned About The Web in 2011 Reading Response

One of the things that really interests me about this article is the excitement that these designers and developers feel for the future of the web. It makes me pull my hair out because I know it will still be a while before I can get out there and cut my teeth on it. Though I am looking forward to the projects that we have lined up! User experience, interface design for web and mobile is something I can't learn enough about. I think its just really exciting and fascinating. 

Aarron Walter, user experience lead at Mail Chimp talks about how emotions effect every decision that we make as a user/consumer so it only makes sense for designers to structurer their design with those emotions considered. Understanding that emotional response allows for designers to create better experiences. I agree with what Walter is saying here. Emotions are at the heart if what purchases people make in stores and online. I think it would be foolish to think there isn't an emotional involvement in the process of how they get to the online store they'll use or even physical store. The very car they'll drive there is a huge emotional purchase. 

Jeff Croft, discuses how the job of a web designers and developers has been changing rapidly. More and more of the web is API's (application programming interface's) and other services are on the rise. Apps like Instagram are widely used now and simular services are on the rise. I think that there will for a while at least be a place for actual sites to exist but all sites have to be mobile friendly, and open to rapid change for new mobile devices. 

Regarding mobile design Josh Clark's statement had some wisdom in it I think. "if content isn’t available on mobile, it’s simply not available at all." 25% of mobile users don't rely on a desktop anymore. 

Kimberly Blessing, mentions silent browser updates becoming the norm. Thinking back to IE updates its no wonder that the death of IE older versions are celebrated in the web community. I think designers / web designers & developers really listing to the feedback from the user is leading the design community to new leaps and bounds. At the heart of this I think is the user base that isn't as overwhelmed and confused by the way the browsers work. Submitting feedback is implemented into every browser now for good reason. 

Reactions to 95% Typography Reading & Responce

This is a pretty ridiculous read. I can see where people would come out to complain about his article but its a matter of opinion which he has ever right to voice. It seems like a quarter of these responses are people who just missed the point in the first place. The ironic thing of it is he's writing a book on usability and branding. I would imagine that all of this feed back from his article will just wind up informing his book. The art school graduate mistakes are great. I can admit that I have made the mistake of leaving out visited and active links function out of several websites. He mentions that web designers are not reading enough books. I've realized that as a designer I've been spending too much time looking for inspiration rather than expanding my understanding of why those designs are attractive and how they function successfully. I've got to hand it to him for responding to his readers and critics this way.

Web Design is 95% Typography Reading & Response

The foundation of web design is typography. "Information design is typography" I imagine in a few years web design will be 96% typography haha because of the increase in content and the need for hierarchy and organization. Typography must be clear and effective otherwise what information that is trying to reach the consumer is lost. The idea of text as user interface is fascinating. Sites like google, ebay, and others that the article reference as sites that use simple interfaces and a strong identity at the same time. I imagine that their identity is strengthened by the use of less visual competing elements with the branding of the site. For example when you go to google.com you see what? The google brand and a search bar. Quite memorable.

10 New Year's Resolutions for Designers Reading Response

Choosing better problems to solve was an inspirational article. Quite an interestingly written article as well. It makes several really great points about what kind of technology and power that we are squandering away on trying to copy existing successful applications and business models rather than trying to create solutions to social and economic problems. Stop stealing crap. "be aware of and take advantage of the learning that came before you." great advice. This section of the article really points out something interesting about web design as well. He mentions his book viewsource and how they would see someones code, copy it, and change it and put it online and then someone would come along and see it, copy it, and change it again. Its pure evolution. Don't try and save work that doesn't function properly or solve the problem that you're meaning too. You'll just end up wasting more time. Remember to swallow the ego and salvage the project not your pride. Challenge clients don't pander to them and don't blame poor design on other people. You can’t design in fear. "Don’t throw the fight before a punch gets thrown". Swallow your pride and accept blame. I can honestly say I have failed a lot since coming to school here. Lots of projects did not turning out the way I wanted to them to and its been a great way of growing as a designer. I have gotten much better at learning to accept my short comings and work to improve them. The main thing is I know I'm messing up less with time which is all I can ask for. Stay curious? I would rather take this attempt at a Steve Jobs quote and just put it out there. Stay hungry. I'm happy to know there's so much I don't know. Design changes so rapidly, and technology changes at light speed. I think now more so than ever are they blending together into some kind of beautiful unruly monster. A designer who can't write can't defend their work. Boy does that hit home pretty hard. I have picked up The Elements of Style Illustrated and look forward to improving. Sell your designs, don't back down, and intelligently justify your work! I can't drill this into myself hard enough. Really great article.

Designing for Interaction: Design Research Response

In this article Dan Saffer using a fictional zoo makes a great example of how products and services can be greatly improved by first dedicating some time to viewing the interaction between a customer/user and the said product. Another method would be speaking with them while they use it, and even work and change it in the process with the customer/user. The design researcher utilizes the methods of several hats most notably being the anthropologist, scientist, and sociologist. After reading this article its crazy to think that so many people don't first research the audience that they're designing for. I think that its really interesting that according to the article that many designers are not usually required to do design research. And that many of them instead trust their instinct, knowledge, and experience to create products. I wonder if this is impart to the fast pace of deadlines pushing for the best bang for the back rather than well researched solutions. I think that its really interesting that interaction designers don't generally do research considering the risk and importance of qualitative research to interaction design because of the behaviors, expectations, and motivations that help inform the design. Its frighting to think that it might not work in its environment or meet the users need after all of the cost to develop a project. This brings to mind the importance of budget and time management to make sure design research happens. The author mentions empathy for the user and how it can help avoid upsetting or frustrating them. Understanding the importance of design research does not mean that we have to do exactly what the data is pointing towards. Well designed data can be very inspirational. Its fascinating that when doing design research that we should first interview our own biases and beliefs about the subject and analys and remove them from the equation. Design has a great deal of promise to improve the world if it has more weight as a profession and practice that will only come with mass utilization with the kind of knowledge in this article. Great read!

Urban Chicken Farmer Research

Urban Chicken Farmer

Eli B, Jessie R, Jessica R. 

Mutual Beliefs: 

• Sustainability
• Recycling
• Ethical Treatment of Animals
• Understanding where the food comes from
• Eating locally

Competition: 

• Egg Sizes
• Chicken Sizes
• Breeds

In The Community: Low-income families raise chickens as a source of sustainable, healthy food. They see the chickens as a route to better nutrition. This is also a way that families can reconnect with where the food on the table comes from.

Politics / Common Goal: They tend to be politically active because of the ever changing political and community stance of the practice of having chickens in an urban environment. For example they have actively taken part in persuading the local city legislation in Madison, Wis. into not approving a ban on chickens outright but rather ban just the source of the noise: roosters.

Controversy: Roosters are banned for the noise that they create. Cockfighting is a concern.

Practice: Chickens are considered the gateway animal for urban farming. 

Sources / Citations:


New York Times - A Chicken on Every Plot, a Coop in Every Backyard
Back Yard Chickens.com How to raise chicks in the city
Urban Chickens.org